These photos were obtained with permission from the homepage of Omuta resident,Toshifumi Ishikawa.

Route 280, a four-lane national highway leads to the direction of Fukuoka city (north) and Kumamoto city (south) respectively. "In Japan you must drive on the left side of the street."

"The Japanese azalea season makes me realize that 'Golden Week' is around the corner. 'Golden Week' means a holiday-studded week in late April through early May. It's scattered holidays for students while many office workers have consecutive holidays. Therefore it's a headache for parents with children who go to school to plan how to spend this holidays.
'Where should we go during the coming holidays?' "

"From the top floor of my condominium to the western part of the city. Behind the tall chimney in a left photo, the Ariake Sea spread but you can see nothing."

"Located in downtown Omuta, which has the City Hall, the Central Post Office, the City Library, Omuta Railroad Station, etc. This hall is provided with conference rooms, a planetarium, a gymnasium."

"Omuta is said to be the birthplace of Japanese playing card or "Karuta" in Japanese. They have a large collection of karuta here. In the same building there is the city library, where I and my family often walk with a knapsack and enjoy reading books."

"This small park is close to the Omuta library, city police office and city fire department. It is located between a city gymnasium and Enmei Zoo. There are a lot of "Yabu-Tsubaki" blossoms come out in spring."

"There are mid-sized department stores, amusement places, various kinds of stores along those streets. When I got a job in 1981, this was a place, where I often spent a time in weekend."

"Although major shopping streets have been uptodated to attract shoppers, some areas don't. Those shops are mainly run by elderly people and products they sell are for the same generations of them. I feel as if I am back to the past and I hope they will remain the same."

"Built in the 41th year of  the Taisho era. This house had been used as a guest house for foreign officers. The appearance still remains the same since it was built. Today we can have some tea and dinner as well as some people use here for a wedding reception. A decade ago, my wife and I attended a wedding reception of one of my friends here."

This dragon head, now on display in the Omuta City railroad station, will be paraded through town during the annual Daija-yama Festival in July.